


Swing Low

by CloudAtlas



Series: Valentine's Prompts 2015 [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sports, Community: be_compromised, Gen, Losing, Rugby Union, Rugby World Cup 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-11 10:07:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3323522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint just snorts. Of course it’s his fault; miss a drop goal in the dying minutes of overtime when you’re only two points down and <i>could still win this</i>? Definition of ‘your fault’.</p><p> </p><p>For the prompt; <i>I'm glad you're with me, here at the end of all things</i>. I blame the fact that the Six Nations is on and rugby players wear almost as much tape as Clint Barton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swing Low

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SugarFey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarFey/gifts).



> I'm sorry that this is pretty far from anything you might have wanted, but I just really love rugby.

All Clint sees when he closes his eyes is the ball going wide; Wilson’s face falling, the flags staying down, the clock going dead and the whistle blowing. He can still hear the crowd from here; screaming, thundering applause – but not for them. No, they’re in the changing room already and it’s quiet as the grave. 

All Clint sees when he opens his eyes are his boots. They have the words ‘ENG v IRE Twickenham World Cup Final 2015’ sewn around the top. It was exciting before kick-off – a World Cup Final for the shitty American who hadn’t even known what rugby was until he came to the UK – but now it’s just a disappointment. A 97% success rate is only good when that 3% doesn’t land somewhere important.

Like a fucking World Cup Final.

“Ain’t your fault, Barton,” Comes Wilson’s voice, thick with disappointment.

Clint just snorts. Of course it’s his fault; miss a drop goal in the dying minutes of overtime when you’re only two points down and _could still win this?_  Definition of ‘your fault’.

“C’mon,” Wilson claps Clint on the shoulder. “Shower. Coach. Alcohol.”

Clint doesn’t move, just drops his head back into his hands as the rest of the team shuffle out of the changing rooms.

Eyes open; boots. Eyes closed; the ball arcing wide.

Open or closed?  It’s all losing.

“C’mon, Barton.”

Another voice, quieter this time, and Clint looks up. Natasha is the team’s primary medic. She’s probably a foot shorter that their shortest guy, 80 pounds lighter than their lightest guy, and utterly terrifying.

Forget the coach; this team is whipped into shape by Natasha Romanova.

She comes over to where he’s sitting and begins to gently remove the tape from around his head. It pulls on the dried blood around his left eyebrow, but he hardly notices. She moves onto the tape on his thigh and his forearm before removing the tape from around the fingers of his left hand. Every strip of tape removed reveals bright white skin, untouched by the mud and dye of the field.

“Take your boots off. I want to check your ankle.”

“My ankle is fine,” Clint mumbles.

“I have the medical degree; I’ll be the judge of that.”

Clint tries to pry his boots off with his toes but fails miserably. Natasha rolls her eyes and kneels down, removing his shoes and socks for him before prodding at his ankle and rotating his foot while checking his face for flickers of pain.

Clint’s all pain though, so his expression doesn’t change.

Natasha stops prodding his ankle, but doesn’t drop her gaze. She just stares and stares until Clint wants to cry with it; this crushing guilt of losing everything this team worked so hard for.

“It feels like the world ended,” he all but chokes out, his voice breaking. His hands come up to cover his eyes and hide from Natasha’s gaze.

“Well, the stadium is still standing,” Natasha says gently. “The world’s going to have to try harder.”

Clint chokes out a sob.

“Hey,” she says, pushing his thighs apart so she can knee-walk right into his space. “Hey, look at me, Clint.”

She forces her hands under his chin, forces his head up so he can see her eyes – sad, green eyes because she’s part of this team too; they all are and he let them all down – and he must smell so bad, of mud and sweat and defeat, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“I’m going to let you into a secret,” she says fiercely, her body a stripe of heat all down his front, “you listening?”

She waits until he nods.

“You are the best fly half England has seen in years. You read the game better than anyone, you lead by example and you inspire others to be better. You have the highest kicking accuracy in world rugby. You are twenty three, at the peak of fitness and in four years’ time you are going to go to Japan and you’re going do this again and do it better. But in the meantime there’s the Six Nations, there’s Saracens, and there’s a Lions Tour.”

She shakes his chin slightly, and the intensity of the belief in her eyes makes the disappointment in his chest ache all the more.

“You’re going to be world class, Clint. You’re going to be up there with O’Driscoll and Carter and Jonah Lomu.”

“It’s my fault,” Clint all but whispers.

“No it isn’t, Clint” Natasha says, her face so close that her breath ghosts over his lips. “You got an awkward pass and Rogers was just too close. You ran out of time.”

Clint doesn’t say anything to that. He can see Rogers body turning, can see the look on his face when the ball went wide; the wild, shocky joy. Ireland: World Cup Winners 2015.

Clint breathes out, deliberately even.

“C’mon, Barton,” Natasha says, standing up to tower over him. “Shower.”

Clint blows out another breath and then looks up.

“You gonna join me?” he says, aiming for levity with their long running joke but falling well short.

Natasha raises her eyebrow, cuffing him gently round the head but saying nothing. Clint loses his smile almost as soon as he finds it and instead tips his head forward to rest against her stomach. Her rainproof coat rustles as her arms come up to rest on his shoulders.

“Thanks, Tasha,” he mumbles into her waistband.

“Any time, Clint.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Swing Low, Sweet Chariot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEKXt2EfyLQ) is the unofficial anthem of English Rugby. I swear hearing 80,000 people singing it at the top of their lungs is one of the best sounds ever.
> 
> I feel I should point out that, being a fly half in this story, Clint is not one of those players that either a) looks like no one you'd want to meet in an alley, dark nor not, or b) looks like they ran face first into a brick wall. Not all rugby players are fuck ugly. Google Danny Cipriani, François Trinh-Duc, Dan Carter or Leigh Halfpenny (!) if you don't believe me. :P


End file.
